Does RT-Mart’s two-year switch of four CEOs, and the 30% instant retail share, still fail to save RT-Mart?

Author | Lao Zhang

Two years, four CEOs.

From March 2024 to March 2026, Gao Xin Retail replaced four CEOs. Lin Xiaohai, Shen Hui, Li Weiping, Hua Yuneng. Each person has a different background, and each person has a different playbook.

This is, in itself, a story. In the retail industry, changing CEOs isn’t unusual. But for a group this large, with four changes in two years—this is no longer normal HR movement. It’s a “carousel.”

RT-Mart was once a legend. For 19 years, it didn’t close a single store. It surpassed Carrefour to become the retail champion on the Chinese mainland. When it went public in 2011, it was called the “most profitable supermarket.” Back then, going to RT-Mart to buy things meant lining up.

But what about now? In the first half of fiscal year 2026, revenue was 30.5 billion yuan, down 12% year over year, with a net loss of 123 million yuan. Same-store sales fell 11.7%.

What happened in between? Why did a former king end up at this point?

Four CEOs, four “prescriptions”

First, let’s talk about these four people.

Lin Xiaohai is from the Alibaba ecosystem. From 2021 to 2024, what he did at RT-Mart was an internet-based approach—heavy emphasis on online channels, heavy digitalization, and pushing M-member stores.

Alibaba’s logic is very clear: the purpose of acquiring RT-Mart was to pave the way for the “new retail” path.

But what happened? Market share declined, and losses widened. By 2024, even Alibaba itself had started withdrawing from physical retail, so Lin Xiaohai naturally left.

His successor was Shen Hui. This person comes from old-school retail; he joined RT-Mart in 1999 and served as general manager of Auchan China. After coming back, what he did was completely the opposite of Lin Xiaohai—closing stores, cutting costs, rolling out a private brand called the “Super Saver Series.” The slogan he used was “Return to the essence of retail.”

In fiscal year 2025, RT-Mart indeed turned from loss to profit, with a net profit of 386 million yuan. But if you look closely at the financial statements, this turnaround was achieved by cutting 2.9 billion yuan in costs—not because revenue increased. Revenue continued to decline, and same-store sales were still negative. Some people described him as “stopping the bleeding but not growing.” By the end of the year, he resigned as well.

Next came Li Weiping. She came out of the Heytea ecosystem and previously served as general manager of Heytea’s merchandise procurement center. When she arrived, RT-Mart had just been acquired by Dehong Capital. The new owner wanted her to carry out supply chain reform and expand into multiple business formats.

Her plan was aggressive: in three years, renovate 500 stores, and push a combination of “big supermarket + mid-size supermarket + front warehouses + membership stores.”

What happened then? After taking office for 98 days, she went missing. The announcement said it was “unable to get in touch,” and she was later dismissed. What exactly went wrong is rumored to have had to do with issues during her time at Heytea, but the impact on RT-Mart internally was enormous—if a CEO can suddenly vanish, how can the team below stay calm and keep working?

Finally, it was Hua Yuneng. Founder of Dehong Capital, previously involved in M&A at KKR. He had never run a supermarket. In March 2026, he took over in an emergency, with zero compensation—so it likely was just a transitional role.

For an investor to step in directly to manage a company with 100,000 employees is rare in business history. But behind him there is capital, resources, and pressure as well—some analysts believe Dehong Capital’s acquisition of RT-Mart targets a high-price exit three to five years later, and that window is already there.

Four CEOs, four styles—what should frontline people do? You’ve just adapted to one direction, and then the direction changes again. How should the supply chain be adjusted? A lot of things have to be redone.

This is the problem RT-Mart has faced in the past two years: there has been no strategic continuity.

Instant retail accounts for 30%—why can’t it save the day?

At this point, an important data point needs to be inserted.

RT-Mart’s instant retail sales share has already exceeded 30%. In traditional supermarkets, this ratio is among the highest in China. Online order volume is still growing, up 7.4% year over year.

It sounds pretty good, right?

But the problem is that RT-Mart is still losing money. Revenue is falling, and profits are bleeding. This creates a paradox: the better online performs, the more the overall losses?

The reason is actually not that complicated.

First, RT-Mart has essentially moved the offline customer flow online. Overall, it loses more customers than it gains new ones. Consumers are still the same people—only instead of “coming to the store,” they go from “coming at home.”

Also, average order value has dropped. Previously, when you went to a big hypermarket, you bought supplies for a week in one go. Now, with instant retail, you buy once a day, and each purchase is for less.

Second, online has costs. Picking, packaging, and delivery are additional expenses. When average order value drops, these costs become a burden. RT-Mart’s online orders increased, but its gross profit space was squeezed.

Moreover, since it’s all instant retail, RT-Mart also has to consider the offline shopping experience, so its cost efficiency can’t match pure front-warehouse models.

Third, and most critically: RT-Mart’s products have no differentiation. When consumers place orders on the app, they still see the same homogenized items—Master Kong, Nongfu Spring, Haitian soy sauce—no different from community group buying or other front warehouses.

RT-Mart’s own brands, “Super Saver” and “Runfa Select,” combined account for less than 3% of sales. How much is Sam’s Club? 25%. How much is Costco? 32%.

So, this 30% online share looks like a highlight, but in reality it’s “not only not solving the fundamental problem, but even bringing new problems.” It proves the ability to transform channels, but it also exposes the shortcomings in product strength.

To be honest, if this problem isn’t solved, even if the online share reaches 50%, it won’t help. Because customers don’t order just because of the “RT-Mart” name. They order because they can buy things. The day Little Elephant Supermarket lowers prices a bit, customers will leave.

Where is the root problem?

Delving deeper into RT-Mart’s issue, there are actually three things.

First, the hypermarket format itself is in decline.

This isn’t just an issue for RT-Mart—it’s an issue across the whole industry. Consumers have shifted from “one-stop stock-up” to “nearby instant procurement.” Think about it: who would still specifically drive to a hypermarket to buy a whole cart of goods? Young people buy vegetables via Meituan or Dingdong Maicai, delivered to the home in 30 minutes—it’s much more convenient.

An RT-Mart store of tens of thousands of square meters, under this logic, looks clunky. Long routes, tiring walking, and it takes half the day just to buy something. A front warehouse that covers a few hundred square meters within a three-kilometer radius has completely different efficiency.

Second, the old ledger of the supply chain can’t be turned over.

RT-Mart has long relied on a “channel fees” model—charging suppliers for entry fees, end-cap fees, and promotion fees. This model was fine ten years ago, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep running today. Because it leads to bloated SKUs and severe homogenization. On one shelf, there are a dozen brands of shampoo—yet the ones that truly sell well are only two or three. The rest are just filler.

What’s more, this kind of model easily breeds corruption. RT-Mart previously had an operations chief investigated, and the reason was taking kickbacks from suppliers. This isn’t a problem of one individual—it’s a vulnerability in the entire system.

Sam’s Club and Costco, in contrast, take a completely different route—buyer model. They don’t make money by collecting fees from suppliers; they profit from price differences on products. This requires them to understand products, the supply chain, and consumers. The road is difficult, but it’s workable.

Third, management turnover is too frequent.

Four CEOs in two years—every time a new person comes in, they push a whole new set of things. When middle managers see the new boss’s style, they give up on adapting and just wait. As for frontline execution, it’s even worse: layer by layer it weakens, until the end it becomes “you do your thing, I do mine.”

In this situation, even the best strategy can’t land. RT-Mart has tried to reform, but each time reform stops at the surface and never goes deep into execution.

Can Dehong Capital and Hua Yuneng solve retail problems with capital?

Hua Yuneng has a very deep background.

He used to work at KKR on M&A and oversaw consumer brands like Mengniu and Jianai Yogurt. Coming from an investment background, his way of thinking is different. Perhaps he isn’t fixated on how stores operate or how products are placed on shelves. Instead, he looks at issues from the angle of rebuilding enterprise value: how to optimize the asset structure, how to integrate the supply chain, and how to use capital operations to make up for shortcomings.

The reason he took over RT-Mart was that Li Weiping went missing—it should also have been a transition, with the expectation that a new CEO would be replaced soon.

Dehong Capital is a private equity fund. Its logic is to buy, improve, and exit, with a cycle of three to five years. This pacing makes sense in capital markets, but retail can’t be played that way. Supply chain remolding, private brand development, and building users’ minds—these are all slow, patient work that needs time to accumulate.

This retail industry needs long-termism. It needs patience. And it needs a stable management team.

RT-Mart currently still has 12 billion yuan in net cash, the store network is still there, and penetration in lower-tier cities isn’t low. In other words, it still has cards to play. But the question is: how should it play them?

If it keeps changing people, messing around, and swinging back and forth, it will likely be hard. If it can stabilize, even if it just makes “product strength” the one thing and truly nails it, there’s still a chance.

After all, RT-Mart once created a miracle. The record of not closing a single store for 19 years is not something everyone can do. Do the people who truly understand retail still exist? Do the people who can sit down and focus on doing things properly still exist?

Whether RT-Mart can get out of its predicament depends not on who the next CEO is, but on whether someone can truly sit down and do those hard but correct things.

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